Tag Archives: skills and capabilities

What is your organisation’s leadership development acceleration plan? What programme is your business establishing to ensure that you capture the right talent to grow and develop the future leaders of your business?

I recently spoke on this topic at a leadership summit. My focus however was on the developing and grooming of future leaders as opposed to the selection of potential future leaders.

The reason for this is quite simple. Businesses can spend a huge amount of time, energy and money on selecting the right people with the right leadership traits and experience, but what happens to them when they arrive in your business? As Jim Rohn so aptly said “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”, so it is quite obvious that these new future leaders will not be operating in a bubble. On the contrary, they will be constantly interacting with their team members and colleagues.

So let’s paint the picture. These new leaders of the future come into the business with their own set of traits, but they are also unavoidably adopting new traits as they engage with other employees, customers and suppliers. This could be very beneficial for their development and the future of the business if they were being exposed to sought-after leadership traits from their working environment, or it could destroy all of the hard work and effort that was spent on the initial selection process if they are constantly being bombarded by undesirable behaviours.

So before you spend time and money on expensive assessment models and recruitment services, think about the existing people and culture of the business. Think about who these future leaders will be spending their time with and evaluate those people’s leadership and management abilities.

Also, where do you stand with your leadership traits? The long list of non-negotiable traits which have been set out in the future leaders job description, how well do you match up to them?

It’s about accepting that future leaders will not function in silos and that the people they are permanently working with within your organisation will influence their behaviour and belief system in some shape or form. Besides building a future leadership programme spend time on your existing team members and the future leaders supervisors. Build their skills and capabilities, build their soft skills and build their leadership skills. Adopting the mindset that everyone within the business has the ability to grow and develop themselves is your first win.

Create an environment in your business that will nurture your future leaders, not chew them up and spit them out at the first chance it gets.

A question which has stuck in my head forever, thanks to an old boss of mine, “Do you have the right people, in the right seats on the bus?” has over the past couple of weeks come up in conversation with quite a few of my clients.

This is a powerful question because it makes you step back and view your business from a completely different angle. It’s not about the products or services or the systems you use. It’s purely about the people that you have, if they are the right fit for your business and if they are performing their duties as per expectations. A rather sobering question if you ask me.

The teams which function in our businesses are extremely important. You already know that as a business owner or operator, ultimately your team are the ones that make things happen. They are the ones who make the business come alive. They are the ones who represent the brand to the outside world.

With this in mind there are four key areas I would like to raise and possibly get you thinking about when you start evaluating the “seating arrangements” on your own bus.

1) Skills and capabilities – every person in your team has a set of unique skills and capabilities, hence the reason for why you hired them in the first place. If you took a snap shot of your business as it currently stands, is every person within your organisation playing towards their strengths and focusing their attention on your business objectives or has their focus shifted?

Teams function well when they are able to get to know their fellow team mates and over time with some commitment from all parties, your goal is that trust starts to blossom. One ingredient which is key to the trust recipe is having a consistent core group of team members with very little unscheduled shifting of positions and people as possible. As a business owner how do you maintain that core team? In today’s business world we are all aware of how easy it is to “jump ship”. People are often looking for greener pastures. What talent management process to you have in place or people development programme?

2) Emotional intelligence – When you evaluate your team members, instead of only measuring them on their ability to complete their tasks, it pays to measure their emotional intelligence levels as well. They may be highly skilled individuals, but if they have very little self and social awareness, or minimal ability to self-manage, then they could be more of a hindrance in your business than an advantage. The beauty however about emotional intelligence is that it can be learned.

3) Values – It is said that people are guided by their own personal values, goals and needs first before they actively drive any business goals. With this in mind, do your team members share your business values? Are you aware of team members individual personal values? Would it not be best to share in a common set of values and beliefs than to struggle with constant internal conflict with your team members?

4) Motivation and passion – Sticking with the bus analogy, you could call motivation the the fuel of the business. Having a busload of highly skilled, emotional intelligent individuals is any business owners dream. However if these individuals don’t put fuel in the tank, the bus is going nowhere. Same for your business, if your team members aren’t motivated to drive the business goals forward, your business is going no where.

Internal motivation is key and when recruiting the right people should be a non-negotiable, but how are you as the business owner or operator motivating your team members?

With these four areas as a benchmark, how does your current seating arrangement look?

When last did you check that the skills you possess are the skills you are utilising in your current job? Or, are you winging your way through your daily tasks with a very basic skill set and wondering why you are getting frustrated everyday? Are these frustrations causing you to hate your job and prompting you to look elsewhere for employment?

Over the past 2 weeks we have looked at Gregory Bateson’s Logical Levels of Change with regards to job or career change. We have so far discussed the environmentaland behaviour levels. This week we focus on the Skills and Capabilities level.

Let’s do an exercise:

Write down your top three strengths and passions. For example. “I am very good at organising events and co-ordinating people. I am an excellent communicator and I really enjoy motivating people” etc. Remember these strengths are not necessarily what you are currently utilising in your position, but what you are good at and passionate about doing.

Are you utilising these strengths in your current position?

If not, why not? And do you want to?

If you are not utilising these strengths, then what do you need to do or change in order to start utilising them in your job? What skills would you need to acquire?

If you are utilising these strengths, do you believe they could be enhanced even more? What additional skills could you master to carry this out?

We often find that when we are utilising our strengths in our day to day work tasks we find the work more engaging and enjoyable. We are more focused, less distracted and more highly motivated to continue with the job at hand. By default we become passionate employees.

So instead of just thinking about your current skills and/or skills you need to acquire in order to get the job done, first think about and define your strengths and your passions. This can assist with re-focusing you within your current position or directing you to the right job and career. Once these are defined then the necessary skills can be learned.

We can all become more skilful in what we do, but if we aren’t passionate about it and building up our strengths then I believe we are doing ourselves an injustice.